Contributor: Leo Lefebure, former SBCS President
In May 2023 I traveled to Thailand to participate in a meeting of the Buddhist Studies and Dialogue Group of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific in Chiang Mai. To adjust to the difference in time, I went a week early to Bangkok, where I stayed at the Jesuit Xavier Church. I arrived in the morning, and my cab driver had to repeatedly ask directions to navigate through a labyrinth of one-way streets to finally bring me to the Jesuits’ church. After lunch, I lay down to rest, when I heard knocking on the door. A young man who worked for the Jesuits informed me that my Won Buddhist colleague, the Rev. Sunmi Choi, would pick me up at 3:00 p.m. for dinner with other Won Buddhists. I was delighted to make her acquaintance, and she introduced me to other Won Buddhists, including the Honorary Professor Lee Seong Jun of Wonkwang University in Iksan, South Korea, and the Rev. P.N. Ajita, who is originally from India and who has lived in South Korea for many years. Ajita plans to move to Delhi, India, in order to organize interreligious activities there, and so I introduced him by email to Jesuit colleagues of mine there. We had a lively conversation in a Korean restaurant in Bangkok.
On a later day I was visiting Wat Po when Sunmi texted me. I told her where I was, and she promptly contacted a Thai Buddhist monk at Wat Po who works in interreligious relations. He graciously gave me a guided tour of the monumental statue of the reclining Buddha and told me of multiple contacts between Thai Buddhists and Vatican leaders, including Popes Paul VI and Francis. He gave me a memorable volume that celebrates the translation of a classic Khmer text that was presented to Pope Francis. In 2015 the director of the Ethnological Departments of the Vatican Museums wrote to the abbot of Wat Phra Chetuphon (commonly known as Wat Po), asking for assistance. Many years earlier, in 1934, King Rama VII visited Rome and presented the text of the Holy Scripture Khom of Phra Malai in Pali-Thai characters to Pope Pius XI. The text, which presents the legend of an elderly Buddhist monk, Phra Malai, in Sri Lanka, remained unread in the Vatican collection until Pope Francis expressed the desire to display all the sacred texts of other religions in the Vatican Museums. The challenge for the Vatican officials was that no one there could read the text of Phra Malai, and so they asked for help from the abbot of Wat Po. The abbot organized a committee to transliterate and translate the Sacred Scripture of Khom of Phra Malai. The committee began work in 2016, and on May 16, 2018, formally presented their work to Pope Francis in the Vatican. A beautifully illustrated volume commemorates this event. The legend recounts how Phra Malai developed supernatural powers and traveled to hell, where he brought comfort to the suffering; those in hell implored him to warn people on earth to practice the Buddhist precepts and behave properly less they suffer for their faults.
After my visit to Wat Po, I visited the Thai Royal Palace and Emerald Buddha. As I was finishing my visit there, Sunmi once again texted me, this time with an invitation to dinner with President Loh Pai Ling, of the Buddhist Missionary Society Malaysia; Loh Pai Ling serves as the interreligious officer of the World Fellowship of Buddhists. That evening I had a wonderful dinner with her and P.N. Ajita, discussing interreligious relations in Malaysia and beyond. These colleagues welcome contacts with members of SBCS.
While I was in Bangkok, the Won Buddhist community celebrated the birthday of Shakyamuni Buddha, and they invited me to speak, and so I offered an appreciation of the contributions of the Buddha to our world. After a series of speakers, beautiful dancers brought the ceremony to a most elegant conclusion, followed by a delicious meal.
Two years earlier, in 2021, I had appeared with the Ven. Anil Sakya in the online meeting of the Interfaith Coalition Conference for Global Citizens. The day after the celebration of the Buddha’s birthday, Sunmi Choi, P.N. Ajita, and Lee Seong Jun picked me up at the Jesuit church, and we went to visit the Ven. Sakya, where we had a delightful, extended conversation about the life of the Thai Buddhist community, interreligious relations, and contacts between Catholics and Buddhists. Ven. Sakya, who is originally from Nepal, recounted his wide-ranging experiences, including teaching as a visiting professor at the Jesuit Santa Clara University in California. Because he now is responsible for supervising Buddhist monastic life in Thailand, he no longer has time to travel to teach at Santa Clara. It was a wonderful week of making new friends and celebrating Buddhist-Christian relations.